Slashdot Mirror
South Korean Gov't. Advocates Linux
Anonymous Coward writes "Korea has now taken the plunge on the Linux operating system, and is now starting to advocate Linux for use in government and public sector applications. South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communications announced the move today, which will result in decreased Microsoft market share in the region." According to the article, Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication "will provide a total of 3 billion won (US$2.95 million) for government agencies which want to use the Linux and other open-source computer programs this year."
Oops, I meant not in but from Dollars to Euros.
And no, it was not meant to be a flamebait but just a question.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Now to get a few more governments to see the light!
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
That 2.95 million dollar figure from the article seems very tiny. Wouldn't be surprised if they still pay orders of magnitude more for proprietary stuff.
Seems the best way to get a price break from Microsoft is to announce that you're advocating Linux.
I'm shocked at countries that *Don't* use this strategy.
Is this because Asia wants to try Linux and thinks it's the best, or is it because of the anti American (And Microsoft is very American) feelings?
I like muppets.
Just browsed around their site a little bit and I see lotsa positive open source-ish things.
.which is open source and sits on Apache (though it *could* be run on Win32 or Linux).
The Korean Friendship Association USA branch on the DPRK official site uses CMSimple .
This Trip thing they are talking about here has a bit at the bottom of the page that "This webpage and its images is released to the internet community under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License" (with link). Not a Linux endorsement, but definitely in the right ball park.
I doubt they'd ever come out and advocate something that isn't homegrown . . . you don't hear much about DPRK linux users, but somehow I bet they are out there since there's lotsa open source type stuff sitting on their primary web presense.
Or I could be wrong . . . but I'd bet there are some communist linux boxes out there . . .
S.Korea moving towards open source is a good step in right direction @ right time. Asia is known for piracy no one care about the legitimate software usage perhaps most of asian don't even know that piracy is a crime :)
Open source is definitely the most affordable (secure) plateform avaible.
I hope other asian governments (IT Minister if they are not corrupts ;)) move towards open source , move towards legitimate world.
http://askaralikhan.blogspot.com/
Is this because Asia wants to try Linux and thinks it's the best, or is it because of the anti American (And Microsoft is very American) feelings?
Erm... no. The South Korean government is pretty friendly towards the US compared to other countries, both in Asia and internationally. The population gets a little annoyed with the excesses of some of the soldiers here and the United States government's abrasive approach to North Korea, but that in no way is going to translate to the South Korean government, in a country historically devastated by war that's now more than happy to take slow, gradual steps when it comes to international diplomatic situations. As such, suggesting that Korea is dropping Microsoft as some symbolic slap in the face is a really silly way to look at it. Even if the average young- to middle-aged Korean would like to tell the U.S. where to get off, the government isn't going to. Besides, the average Korean also LOVES their Windows-based games. Linux has very little fame over here.
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it has more to do with the fact that a long-term relationship with Microsoft involving Windows XP might seem too expensive for the government. Windows 98 is still the popular OS of choice over here, so if they're worried that dropped W98 support means migrating to either an updated Windows or another OS, it might be worth throwing a few million at Linux to see if it can be adopted on a broad scale.
As an aside, related to the parent's false dichotomy, why do so many Americans see anti-Americanism everywhere?
Actually, KIPA (Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency), an organization funded by the Korean government, switched all its desktops to Linux, and that news was around about 8 months ago. I remember, that the purpose KIPA switched all its desktop to Linux (around 100+ desktops), was to test the possibility of Linux desktop in Korean goverment agencies. The biggest problem of using Linux in government agencies, was the vast amount of in-house tools plus special applications that didn't exist for Linux, and staff training issues. I remeber a KIPA staff screaming for help on a LUG webboard, due to l10n issues. They seemed to have some problem because of inadequate Korean support in Linux.
:)
Something that may be ironic, is that KIPA's current president, Hyun Jin Ko, is the former president of Microsoft Korea.
High Linux userbase in South Korea woud mean more games ported to Linux. It's the only thing that keeps windows in my machine.
I want to be freeee!
---- Take the Space Quiz!
"I guess this means North Korea will have to use Microsoft?"
http://www.paulnoll.com/Korea/History/Korean-nigh
You can already see the difference between Microsoft in North Korea and Linux Sourth Korea.
technologically-active and innovative country in today's world, that should say something... and give hope to all of us who think OSS in general is closely linked to technological innovation, freedom and actually more commercial activity overall.
The USA cannot maintain an enormous trade deficit forever, so the devaluation of the dollar is just a matter of time.
I find this image far more impressive, though it does have the "problem" that people actually need to be able to locate North and South Korea on a globe.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
All communists must be murderers and thieves by definition. They have to seize the resources of society, owned by others. They have to steal, and when the people they are stealing from take action to protect their interests, the communists must kill them or exile them. You can't have communism without murder and theft. Have a blast in any society kicked started by men brutal enough to murder enough people to scare the rest into not defending their property when it is out and out stolen from them, under threat of death. That defines every version of communism. Wake up. Marx had to pawn his shoes on a regular basis. Simply taking the resources of others and having the state support you must have looked like a pretty good deal to a guy who couldn't afford to hold on to his own shoes for long.
That's just it. Those countries aren't communist by definition. Marx himself believed that communism was the natural result of increase in productivity. Most of the so-called "communist" nations have tried to instate communist equality without the prerequisite productivity to do so.
Marx believed the industrial revolution would bring about worldwide communism because there would be nothing more people (individuals) could do to increase productivity or the quality or amount of goods created. At that point, he theorized, capital would be the source of all wealth and we would either have to split up the capital fairly or kill each other over it. In a way, he was right. People are generally worthless in the creation of many goods today. Most western societies could live quite comfortably without anyone doing more than an hour a day of actual work.
Progressive socialist movements all across Europe ended up making many concessions from capitalism and the free market and towards communism. Many wholly "communist" philosophers such as Trotsky and Lenin broke with the movements in their own countries because they turned out to be "smoke screens" for increased government control and furtherance of inequality. These countries essentially destroyed their economies by assuming that the product of individual effort would go towards the collective, essentially disincentivising any work at all and completely ignoring Marx's well thought-out economic basis of communism.
Countries that have stuck with capitalism and free markets make a different set of assumptions. The US assumes that "full employment" is the holy grail of economic policy. Everyone must be working, as much as possible. That will make us happy and wealthy. What have we ended up with? Anti-discrimination laws, fights over unemployment and health benefits, lots of effort essentially wasted making workplaces accessible to the handicapped, who contribute very little to overall productivity, and lots of people getting paid to sit around getting fat and playing on the internet all day.
Health costs have skyrocketed. Instead of designing machines to do the last 10% of every job, people get to assemble stamped parts into a final product. People are dying or having major surgeries essentially due to obesity, stress, and repetitive strain injuries. The first jobs to be automated are the highest paying ones, jobs involving thought or skill instead of dumb repetitive motion.
Why do we do this? There are certain fixed costs involved in living. You have to have insurance and a car in order to get to work. You have to work to eat. You have no choice but to go to work all day, every day, making crap that's designed to break or sitting in a chair doing something that a computer could easily be doing, and sacrifice your health and happiness in exchange for your ration of oil and food and other products of the land your fathers fought to free from opression. Who lives in totalitarianism again?